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I stare at him. His arm is warm across my ribs, and a strand of hair has fallen across his forehead that I want to brush back.
Then Finn sits up like a switch has flipped inside from postcoital wreckage to up and at ’em in the span of a single breath.
“Okay. Food.”
I don’t move. “How.”
“How what?”
“How are you upright?”
He swings his legs off the bed and stretches. “I’m hungry. I smell chicken. Get up.”
“Give me a minute.”
“No minutes.” He grabs my ankle and pulls. Not hard, but with intent. “Up. Come on. If we’re doing round two in twenty-five minutes, I need protein.”
“Fiiiinn.”
“Foster Crue. Get out of this bed.”
He tugs my ankle again. I let my leg go completely limp, so he has to work for it. He rolls his eyes at me, drops my ankle, and instead grabs both my wrists and pulls me upright.
“You are so much work for a man who was on his knees ten minutes ago acting like he was in charge,” Finn says.
“I was in charge until you took over.”
“You gave it up willingly.”
“Because you were being hot.”
He shoves a pair of my boxers at me and pulls on his own. “Kitchen. Now. I’m going to eat your chicken, and then I’m going to have you again, and then I’m going to sleep for twelve hours because I have earned it.”
“Bossy is a sexy look on you.”
“Hungry is not.” He kisses the top of my head and disappears out of the bedroom.
I sit on the edge of the bed for a second, watching the empty doorway.
Then I pull my boxers on, drag one of Finn’s hoodies from the back of the chair over my head, and pad barefoot into the kitchen after him.
CHAPTER FIVE
FINN
I stretch across the bed and hit cold sheets instead of a warm body.
I open my eyes, squinting at the sunlight coming through the window. When they focus, I see Fox in the armchair by the window with a coffee cup in one hand and one of my paperbacks in the other, completely engrossed.
He’s wearing the moose sweater again over his own sweatpants, one leg tucked underneath him. From the angle of his eyebrows, he’s either enjoying the book or planning to mock me for it.
His hair is a mess. The silver streaks catch the light coming through the window. He hasn’t shaved, and the stubble along his jaw is darker than the hair on his head. He looks comfortable in his own skin and completely at ease in my apartment. A strange pinch goes through my gut.
I’ve seen Fox in a lot of rooms. Green rooms after gigs, my parents’ kitchen, at long tables with the whole band, and occasionally at Joe’s.
In every one of those places, he’s been a version of himself that’s slightly guarded. Slightly turned away from me. The version of Fox that everyone else gets.
This isn’t that.